He nodded, closed the door, and when it opened again, just seconds later, it was like a magic trick: the deadpan Oriental replaced by a beaming young woman.
She was in her early twenties, as tall as Amy only more shapely, in the same sort of casual cowboyish clothes: a plaid shirt, tan cotton slacks, and boots. She had a similar short hairdo, though unlike Amy’s, hers was marcelled and dark brunette; she had a clear-complected, lightly made-up, heart-shaped face and wasn’t as cute as Betty Boop, but damn near.
“Oh, Mr. Heller!” she burbled, as if we were old friends finally reunited, her eyes bright and brown and wide, “how wonderful it is to see you!”
She flung the door open and allowed me to move through the shallow, terra cotta-tiled entryway into a living room, casually tasteful in its modern furnishings, dominated by a fireplace of massive gray stone over which a mirror created an illusion of spaciousness, next to which French doors looked out onto a patio where the shapes of more palm trees and a garden were ghostly through sheer curtains. The stucco walls were fairly bare, though one side wall was taken up by a lovely oil portrait of Amy, in flying jacket, hand on hip, a breeze catching her scarf.
“I guess you’ve guessed I’m Margot,” she said, her voice chirpy, her bee-stung lips forming a big smile; her eyes, however, were laced with red. “I feel like I already know you…. A. E. has told me so much about you….”
“Thank you for seeing me,” I said. “Are you sure there’s no problem with your employer?”
“My employer is A. E.,” she said, sticking her chin out proudly. “As for Mr. Putnam, he’s at the San Francisco Coast Guard Station, with Mr. Miller, and isn’t expected till tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.”
She hooked her arm through mine and led me across the living room’s Oriental carpet through an archway into the dining room, off of which a hallway led into the addition to the house. She had a clean fresh smell about her, soap not perfume, I’d bet.
“Ernie said you’re looking into this,” she said, walking me along. “I know it’s what A. E. will want.”
“Excuse me,” I said, “but you act like she spoke of me often.”
“Not often. But when she did, it was with great affection.” She paused at a closed door. “Let’s go in here—it’s A. E.’s study. I think she’d like us to do our talking in her presence, so to speak.”
I followed her in and she ushered me to a worn, comfy-looking sofa in a corner of a rather spartan study, under a wall of photos that wasn’t as excessive as Paul Mantz’s office display, but close to it: aviation memories and signed movie star mugs. Double windows looked out onto the patio and a well-tended garden; they were open to let in the dry cool evening breeze that had replaced the sweltering day. A centrally placed card table with a typewriter was a typically informal Amelia Earhart “office,” littered with books and typing paper and yellow pads. A more formal desk, a rolltop, took up one wall, and much of another was swallowed up by a trophy cabinet. Standing bookcases, a pair of file cabinets, and an easy chair made up the rest of the room.
“This looks like it might be Mr. Putnam’s study, as well,” I said, sitting down.
“It is—they shared it, but he hasn’t been using it since…well, since.” Margot closed the door. She wrinkled her nose, chipmunk cute, and said, “We’ll opt for privacy. Joe’s nice, but he’s loyal to Mr. Putnam.”
“Joe’s the houseman?”
“Yes. A wonderful gardener, too. He also does the heavy chores; my mother does the rest.”
“Your mother?”
She settled in next to me—not right next to me, but it was a good thing for her I wasn’t Jack the Ripper, because she was assuming the best about me, not always the safest course for a cute kid like this.
“When my mother got the housekeeper position here—I’m a local girl, well, Glendale local—I just went crazy. I’ve been a fan of A. E.’s since I was twelve! I just adore her—you should see my scrapbooks. Did you know she had scrapbooks, too, when she was a girl? Full of stories about women doing work that was supposed to be a man’s domain? And I’d been writing her fan letters since forever, and do you know, she answered every one?”
“Really?”
“So when Mother got this job, I just had to come around and meet A. E., and she was so wonderful, you just wouldn’t believe, well I guess you would knowing her like you do, but I started coming around and, well, maybe I made a pest of myself, telling her how I was a graduate from the business college over in Van Nuys, dropping all kinds of hints, telling her how terrible it must be to be swamped like she was with so much fan mail and all, and anyway, finally she said, A. E. said, I guess I really could use a Girl Friday at that, and ever since then I’ve been in charge of fan letters, filing, and even the household accounts…I studied more than secretarial skills at business college, I have accountancy capability too you know…and I help out in a lot of other ways, meeting airplanes, showing guests around, and entertaining A. E.’s mother, who just went to stay with her other daughter, A. E.’s sister, Muriel, in West Medford, for a while.”
“Is that right?”
“And you know it’s funny, I don’t really think A. E. feels all that close to her real sister, I mean I think she may kind of resent sending her checks all the time, actually I’m the one sending them lately, ever since A. E. disappeared, though I think Mr. Putnam may put a stop to it, but the thing is, we really did get close, we were more like sisters, I think, sometimes, than she was with her real sister, which is why I know what I know about you.”
“What do you know about me?”
“That you love her, too. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
And then she turned away from me in sudden embarrassment and began bawling like a baby. I gathered her up like she was a hurting child, which maybe she was, and held her to me, let her hug me and bury her face in my chest and cry there. I had to wonder when Margot said she loved Amy, if it was the Toni Lake variety; but my hunch was not. This was about hero worship, not hormones.
As she began to settle down, I fished a clean handkerchief out of my pocket and gave it to her; she thanked me, dried her eyes and moved away a little, sitting with her hands in her lap, clenching the hanky. She looked very small, her face devoid of makeup now, a pale cameo.
“But you don’t love
A little humorless smirk dimpled her cheek. “No. Not hardly. At first I accepted him…I mean, after all, A. E.
